Publications

Abstract

We advance the hypothesis here that the higher-than-average vocal pitch (FO) found for speech of Broca's aphasics in experimental settings is due, in part, to increased psychological stress. Two experiments were conducted which manipulated conversational constraints and the sentence forms to be produced by aphasic patients. Our study revealed significant differences between changes in vocal pitch of agrammatic Broca's aphasics versus those of Wernicke's aphasics and normal controls. It is suggested that the greater psychological stress experienced by the Broca's aphasics, but not by the Wernicke's aphasics, accounts for these observed differences.

Abstract

The present article on executive control addresses the issue of the locus of the Stroop effect by examining neurophysiological components marking conflict monitoring, interference suppression, and conflict resolution. Our goal was to provide an overview of a series of determining neurophysiological findings including neural source reconstruction data on distinct executive control processes and sub-processes involved in the Stroop task. Consistently, a fronto-central N2 component is found to reflect conflict monitoring processes, with its main neural generator being the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Then, for cognitive control tasks that involve a linguistic component like the Stroop task, the N2 is followed by a centro-posterior N400 and subsequently a late sustained potential (LSP). The N400 is mainly generated by the ACC and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and is thought to reflect interference suppression, whereas the LSP plausibly reflects conflict resolution processes. The present overview shows that ERP constitute a reliable methodological tool for tracing with precision the time course of different executive processes and sub-processes involved in experimental tasks involving a cognitive conflict. Future research should shed light on the fine-grained mechanisms of control respectively involved in linguistic and non-linguistic tasks.

Abstract

Speakers and listeners usually interact in larger discourses than single words or even single sentences. The goal of the present study was to identify the neural bases reflecting how the mental representation of the situation denoted in a multi-sentence discourse (situation model) is constructed and shared between speakers and listeners. An fMRI study using a variant of the ambiguous text paradigm was designed. Speakers (n=15) produced ambiguous texts in the scanner and listeners (n=27) subsequently listened to these texts in different states of ambiguity: preceded by a highly informative, intermediately informative or no title at all. Conventional BOLD activation analyses in listeners, as well as inter-subject correlation analyses between the speakers’ and the listeners’ hemodynamic time courses were performed. Critically, only the processing of disambiguated, coherent discourse with an intelligible situation model representation involved (shared) activation in bilateral lateral parietal and medial prefrontal regions. This shared spatiotemporal pattern of brain activation between the speaker and the listener suggests that the process of memory retrieval in medial prefrontal regions and the binding of retrieved information in the lateral parietal cortex constitutes a core mechanism underlying the communication of complex conceptual representations.

Abstract

Visual context facilitates perception, but how this is neurally implemented remains unclear. One example of contextual facilitation is found in reading, where letters are more easily identified when embedded in a word. Bottom-up models explain this word advantage as a post-perceptual decision bias, while top-down models propose that word contexts enhance perception itself. Here, we arbitrate between these accounts by presenting words and nonwords and probing the representational fidelity of individual letters using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In line with top-down models, we find that word contexts enhance letter representations in early visual cortex. Moreover, we observe increased coupling between letter information in visual cortex and brain activity in key areas of the reading network, suggesting these areas may be the source of the enhancement. Our results provide evidence for top-down representational enhancement in word recognition, demonstrating that word contexts can modulate perceptual processing already at the earliest visual regions.

Abstract

Timing is an essential parameter influencing many behaviours. A previous study demonstrated a high sensitivity of a phocid, the harbour seal (Phoca vitulina), in discriminating time intervals. In the present study, we compared the harbour seal’s timing abilities with the timing abilities of an otariid, the South African fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus). This comparison seemed essential as phocids and otariids differ in many respects and might, thus, also differ regarding their timing abilities. We determined time difference thresholds for sub- and suprasecond time intervals marked by a white circle on a black background displayed for a specific time interval on a monitor using a staircase method. Contrary to our expectation, the timing abilities of the fur seal and the harbour seal were comparable. Over a broad range of time intervals, 0.8–7 s in the fur seal and 0.8–30 s in the harbour seal, the difference thresholds followed Weber’s law. In this range, both animals could discriminate time intervals differing only by 12 % and 14 % on average. Timing might, thus be a fundamental cue for pinnipeds in general to be used in various contexts, thereby complementing information provided by classical sensory systems. Future studies will help to clarify if timing is indeed involved in foraging decisions or the estimation of travel speed or distance.

Abstract

Obesity is a genetically heterogeneous disorder. Using targeted and whole-exome sequencing, we studied 32 human and 87 rodent obesity genes in 2,548 severely obese children and 1,117 controls. We identified 52 variants contributing to obesity in 2% of cases including multiple novel variants in GNAS, which were sometimes found with accelerated growth rather than short stature as described previously. Nominally significant associations were found for rare functional variants in BBS1, BBS9, GNAS, MKKS, CLOCK and ANGPTL6. The p.S284X variant in ANGPTL6 drives the association signal (rs201622589, MAF~0.1%, odds ratio = 10.13, p-value = 0.042) and results in complete loss of secretion in cells. Further analysis including additional case-control studies and population controls (N = 260,642) did not support association of this variant with obesity (odds ratio = 2.34, p-value = 2.59 × 10−3), highlighting the challenges of testing rare variant associations and the need for very large sample sizes. Further validation in cohorts with severe obesity and engineering the variants in model organisms will be needed to explore whether human variants in ANGPTL6 and other genes that lead to obesity when deleted in mice, do contribute to obesity. Such studies may yield druggable targets for weight loss therapies.

Abstract

Polymorphisms in the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene have been associated with individual differences in cognition, brain structure and brain function. For example, the ε4 allele has been associated with cognitive and brain impairment in old age and increased risk of dementia, while the ε2 allele has been claimed to be neuroprotective. According to the ‘antagonistic pleiotropy’ hypothesis, these polymorphisms have different effects across the lifespan, with ε4, for example, postulated to confer benefits on cognitive and brain functions earlier in life. In this stage 2 of the Registered Report – https://osf.io/bufc4, we report the results from the cognitive and brain measures in the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience cohort (www.cam-can.org). We investigated the antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis by testing for allele-by-age interactions in approximately 600 people across the adult lifespan (18–88 years), on six outcome variables related to cognition, brain structure and brain function (namely, fluid intelligence, verbal memory, hippocampal grey-matter volume, mean diffusion within white matter and resting-state connectivity measured by both functional magnetic resonance imaging and magnetoencephalography). We found no evidence to support the antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis. Indeed, Bayes factors supported the null hypothesis in all cases, except for the (linear) interaction between age and possession of the ε4 allele on fluid intelligence, for which the evidence for faster decline in older ages was ambiguous. Overall, these pre-registered analyses question the antagonistic pleiotropy of APOE polymorphisms, at least in healthy adults.

Abstract

Simultaneous interpretation is a complex cognitive task that not only demands multilingual language processing, but also requires application of extreme levels of domain-general cognitive control. We used MRI to longitudinally measure cortical thickness in simultaneous interpretation trainees before and after a Master's program in conference interpreting. We compared them to multilingual control participants scanned at the same interval of time. Increases in cortical thickness were specific to trainee interpreters. Increases were observed in regions involved in lower-level, phonetic processing (left posterior superior temporal gyrus, anterior supramarginal gyrus and planum temporale), in the higher-level formulation of propositional speech (right angular gyrus) and in the conversion of items from working memory into a sequence (right dorsal premotor cortex), and finally, in domain-general executive control and attention (right parietal lobule). Findings are consistent with the linguistic requirements of simultaneous interpretation and also with the more general cognitive demands on attentional control for expert performance in simultaneous interpreting. Our findings may also reflect beneficial, potentially protective effects of simultaneous interpretation training, which has previously been shown to confer enhanced skills in certain executive and attentional domains over and above those conferred by bilingualism.

Abstract

We argue, based on a study of brain responses to speech sound differences in Japanese, that memory encoding of functional speech sounds-phonemes-are highly abstract. As an example, we provide evidence for a theory where the consonants/p t k b d g/ are not only made up of symbolic features but are underspecified with respect to voicing or laryngeal features, and that languages differ with respect to which feature value is underspecified. In a previous study we showed that voiced stops are underspecified in English [Hestvik, A., & Durvasula, K. (2016). Neurobiological evidence for voicing underspecification in English. Brain and Language], as shown by asymmetries in Mismatch Negativity responses to /t/ and /d/. In the current study, we test the prediction that the opposite asymmetry should be observed in Japanese, if voiceless stops are underspecified in that language. Our results confirm this prediction. This matches a linguistic architecture where phonemes are highly abstract and do not encode actual physical characteristics of the corresponding speech sounds, but rather different subsets of abstract distinctive features.

Abstract

The use of virtual reality (VR) as a methodological tool is becoming increasingly popular in behavioral research as its flexibility allows for a wide range of applications. This new method has not been as widely accepted in the field of psycholinguistics, however, possibly due to the assumption that language processing during human-computer interactions does not accurately reflect human-human interactions. Yet at the same time there is a growing need to study human-human language interactions in a tightly controlled context, which has not been possible using existing methods. VR, however, offers experimental control over parameters that cannot be (as finely) controlled in the real world. As such, in this study we aim to show that human-computer language interaction is comparable to human-human language interaction in virtual reality. In the current study we compare participants’ language behavior in a syntactic priming task with human versus computer partners: we used a human partner, a human-like avatar with human-like facial expressions and verbal behavior, and a computer-like avatar which had this humanness removed. As predicted, our study shows comparable priming effects between the human and human-like avatar suggesting that participants attributed human-like agency to the human-like avatar. Indeed, when interacting with the computer-like avatar, the priming effect was significantly decreased. This suggests that when interacting with a human-like avatar, sentence processing is comparable to interacting with a human partner. Our study therefore shows that VR is a valid platform for conducting language research and studying dialogue interactions in an ecologically valid manner.

Abstract

Syntactic priming, the phenomenon in which participants adopt the linguistic behaviour of their partner, is widely used in psycholinguistics to investigate syntactic operations. Although the phenomenon of syntactic priming is well documented, the memory system that supports the retention of this syntactic information long enough to influence future utterances, is not as widely investigated. We aim to shed light on this issue by assessing patients with Korsakoff's amnesia on an active-passive syntactic priming task and compare their performance to controls matched in age, education, and premorbid intelligence. Patients with Korsakoff's syndrome display deficits in all subdomains of declarative memory, yet their nondeclarative memory remains intact, making them an ideal patient group to determine which memory system supports syntactic priming. In line with the hypothesis that syntactic priming relies on nondeclarative memory, the patient group shows strong priming tendencies (12.6% passive structure repetition). Our healthy control group did not show a priming tendency, presumably due to cognitive interference between declarative and nondeclarative memory. We discuss the results in relation to amnesia, aging, and compensatory mechanisms.

Abstract

The hippocampal formation is a brain structure integrally involved in episodic memory, spatial navigation, cognition and stress responsiveness. Structural abnormalities in hippocampal volume and shape are found in several common neuropsychiatric disorders. To identify the genetic underpinnings of hippocampal structure here we perform a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 33,536 individuals and discover six independent loci significantly associated with hippocampal volume, four of them novel. Of the novel loci, three lie within genes (ASTN2, DPP4 and MAST4) and one is found 200 kb upstream of SHH. A hippocampal subfield analysis shows that a locus within the MSRB3 gene shows evidence of a localized effect along the dentate gyrus, subiculum, CA1 and fissure. Further, we show that genetic variants associated with decreased hippocampal volume are also associated with increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease (rg=−0.155). Our findings suggest novel biological pathways through which human genetic variation influences hippocampal volume and risk for neuropsychiatric illness.

Abstract

Objective
Determining the genetic basis of speech disorders provides insight into the neurobiology of
human communication. Despite intensive investigation over the past 2 decades, the etiology of
most speech disorders in children remains unexplained. To test the hypothesis that speech
disorders have a genetic etiology, we performed genetic analysis of children with severe speech
disorder, specifically childhood apraxia of speech (CAS).
Methods
Precise phenotyping together with research genome or exome analysis were performed on
children referred with a primary diagnosis of CAS. Gene coexpression and gene set enrichment
analyses were conducted on high-confidence gene candidates.
Results
Thirty-four probands ascertained for CAS were studied. In 11/34 (32%) probands, we identified
highly plausible pathogenic single nucleotide (n = 10; CDK13, EBF3, GNAO1, GNB1,
DDX3X, MEIS2, POGZ, SETBP1, UPF2, ZNF142) or copy number (n = 1; 5q14.3q21.1 locus)
variants in novel genes or loci for CAS. Testing of parental DNA was available for 9 probands
and confirmed that the variants had arisen de novo. Eight genes encode proteins critical for
regulation of gene transcription, and analyses of transcriptomic data found CAS-implicated
genes were highly coexpressed in the developing human brain.
Conclusion
We identify the likely genetic etiology in 11 patients with CAS and implicate 9 genes for the first
time. We find that CAS is often a sporadic monogenic disorder, and highly genetically heterogeneous.
Highly penetrant variants implicate shared pathways in broad transcriptional
regulation, highlighting the key role of transcriptional regulation in normal speech development.
CAS is a distinctive, socially debilitating clinical disorder, and understanding its
molecular basis is the first step towards identifying precision medicine approaches.

Abstract

Many studies have demonstrated that listeners use information extracted from verbs to guide anticipatory eye movements to objects in the visual context that satisfy the selection restrictions of the verb. An important question is what underlies such verb-mediated anticipatory eye gaze. Based on empirical and theoretical suggestions, we investigated the influence of five potential predictors of this behavior: functional associations and general associations between verb and target object, as well as the listeners’ production fluency, receptive vocabulary knowledge, and non-verbal intelligence. In three eye-tracking experiments, participants looked at sets of four objects and listened to sentences where the final word was predictable or not predictable (e.g., “The man peels/draws an apple”). On predictable trials only the target object, but not the distractors, were functionally and associatively related to the verb. In Experiments 1 and 2, objects were presented before the verb was heard. In Experiment 3, participants were given a short preview of the display after the verb was heard. Functional associations and receptive vocabulary were found to be important predictors of verb-mediated anticipatory eye gaze independent of the amount of contextual visual input. General word associations did not and non-verbal intelligence was only a very weak predictor of anticipatory eye movements. Participants’ production fluency correlated positively with the likelihood of anticipatory eye movements when participants were given the long but not the short visual display preview. These findings fit best with a pluralistic approach to predictive language processing in which multiple mechanisms, mediating factors, and situational context dynamically interact. 

Abstract

Contemporary accounts of anticipatory language processing assume that individuals predict upcoming information at multiple levels of representation. Research investigating language-mediated anticipatory eye gaze typically assumes that linguistic input restricts the domain of subsequent reference (visual target objects). Here, we explored the converse case: Can visual input restrict the dynamics of anticipatory language processing? To this end, we recorded participants’ eye movements as they listened to sentences in which an object was predictable based on the verb’s selectional restrictions (“The man peels a banana”). While listening, participants looked at different types of displays: The target object (banana) was either present or it was absent. On target-absent trials, the displays featured objects that had a similar visual shape as the target object (canoe) or objects that were semantically related to the concepts invoked by the target (monkey). Each trial was presented in a long preview version, where participants saw the displays for approximately 1.78 seconds before the verb was heard (pre-verb condition), and a short preview version, where participants saw the display approximately 1 second after the verb had been heard (post-verb condition), 750 ms prior to the spoken target onset. Participants anticipated the target objects in both conditions. Importantly, robust evidence for predictive looks to objects related to the (absent) target objects in visual shape and semantics was found in the post-verb but not in the pre-verb condition. These results suggest that visual information can restrict language-mediated anticipatory gaze and delineate theoretical accounts of predictive processing in the visual world.

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that during comprehension readers activate words beyond the unfolding sentence. An open question concerns the mechanisms underlying this behavior. One proposal is that readers mentally simulate the described event and activate related words that might be referred to as the discourse further unfolds. Another proposal is that activation between words spreads in an automatic, associative fashion. The empirical support for these proposals is mixed. Therefore, theoretical accounts differ with regard to how much weight they place on the contributions of these sources to sentence comprehension. In the present study, we attempted to assess the contributions of event simulation and lexical associations to discourse reading, using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Participants read target words, which were preceded by associatively related words either appearing in a coherent discourse event (Experiment 1) or in sentences that did not form a coherent discourse event (Experiment 2). Contextually unexpected target words that were associatively related to the described events elicited a reduced N400 amplitude compared to contextually unexpected target words that were unrelated to the events (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, a similar but reduced effect was observed. These findings support the notion that during discourse reading event simulation and simple word associations jointly contribute to language comprehension by activating words that are beyond contextually congruent sentence continuations.

Abstract

- * indicates joint first authorship - Lexical access is a core component of word processing. In order to produce or comprehend a word, language users must access word forms in their mental lexicon. However, despite its involvement in both tasks, previous research has often studied lexical access in either production or comprehension alone. Therefore, it is unknown to which extent lexical access processes are shared across both tasks. Picture naming and auditory lexical decision are considered good tools for studying lexical access. Both of them are speeded tasks. Given these commonalities, another open question concerns the involvement of general cognitive abilities (e.g., processing speed) in both linguistic tasks. In the present study, we addressed these questions. We tested a large group of young adults enrolled in academic and vocational courses. Participants completed picture naming and auditory lexical decision tasks as well as a battery of tests assessing non-verbal processing speed, vocabulary, and non-verbal intelligence. Our results suggest that the lexical access processes involved in picture naming and lexical decision are related but less closely than one might have thought. Moreover, reaction times in picture naming and lexical decision depended as least as much on general processing speed as on domain-specific linguistic processes (i.e., lexical access processes).

Abstract

This resource contains data from 112 Dutch adults (18–29 years of age) who completed the Individual Differences in Language Skills test battery that included 33 behavioural tests assessing language skills and domain-general cognitive skills likely involved in language tasks. The battery included tests measuring linguistic experience (e.g. vocabulary size, prescriptive grammar knowledge), general cognitive skills (e.g. working memory, non-verbal intelligence) and linguistic processing skills (word production/comprehension, sentence production/comprehension). Testing was done in a lab-based setting resulting in high quality data due to tight monitoring of the experimental protocol and to the use of software and hardware that were optimized for behavioural testing. Each participant completed the battery twice (i.e., two test days of four hours each). We provide the raw data from all tests on both days as well as pre-processed data that were used to calculate various reliability measures (including internal consistency and test-retest reliability). We encourage other researchers to use this resource for conducting exploratory and/or targeted analyses of individual differences in language and general cognitive skills.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the possibility of tremor detection based on deep brain activity.
Methods: We re-analyzed recordings of local field potentials (LFPs) from the subthalamic nucleus in 10
PD patients (12 body sides) with spontaneously fluctuating rest tremor. Power in several frequency bands
was estimated and used as input to Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) which classified short data segments
as either tremor-free rest or rest tremor. HMMs were compared to direct threshold application to individual
power features.
Results: Applying a threshold directly to band-limited power was insufficient for tremor detection (mean
area under the curve [AUC] of receiver operating characteristic: 0.64, STD: 0.19). Multi-feature HMMs, in
contrast, allowed for accurate detection (mean AUC: 0.82, STD: 0.15), using four power features obtained
from a single contact pair. Within-patient training yielded better accuracy than across-patient training
(0.84 vs. 0.78, p = 0.03), yet tremor could often be detected accurately with either approach. High frequency
oscillations (>200 Hz) were the best performing individual feature.
Conclusions: LFP-based markers of tremor are robust enough to allow for accurate tremor detection in
short data segments, provided that appropriate statistical models are used.
Significance: LFP-based markers of tremor could be useful control signals for closed-loop deep brain
stimulation.

Abstract

In 2 experiments, we assessed the effects of response latency and task-induced goals on the onset and time course of semantic priming during rapid processing of visual words as revealed by ocular response
tasks. In Experiment 1 (ocular lexical decision task), participants performed a lexical decision task using eye movement responses on a sequence of 4 words. In Experiment 2, the same words were encoded for an episodic recognition memory task that did not require a metalinguistic judgment. For both tasks, survival analyses showed that the earliest observable effect (divergence point [DP]) of semantic priming on target-word reading times occurred at approximately 260 ms, and ex-Gaussian distribution fits revealed that the magnitude of the priming effect increased as a function of response time. Together, these
distributional effects of semantic priming suggest that the influence of the prime increases when target processing is more effortful. This effect does not require that the task include a metalinguistic judgment;
manipulation of the task goals across experiments affected the overall response speed but not the location of the DP or the overall distributional pattern of the priming effect. These results are more readily explained as the result of a retrospective, rather than a prospective, priming mechanism and are consistent with compound-cue models of semantic priming.

Abstract

This study assessed the effects of semantic context in the form of self-produced and other-produced words on subsequent language production. Pairs of participants performed a joint picture naming task, taking turns while naming a continuous series of pictures. In the single-speaker version of this paradigm, naming latencies have been found to increase for successive presentations of exemplars from the same category, a phenomenon known as Cumulative Semantic Interference (CSI). As expected, the joint-naming task showed a within-speaker CSI effect, such that naming latencies increased as a function of the number of category exemplars named previously by the participant (self-produced items). Crucially, we also observed an across-speaker CSI effect, such that naming latencies slowed as a function of the number of category members named by the participant's task partner (other-produced items). The magnitude of the across-speaker CSI effect did not vary as a function of whether or not the listening participant could see the pictures their partner was naming. The observation of across-speaker CSI suggests that the effect originates at the conceptual level of the language system, as proposed by Belke's (2013) Conceptual Accumulation account. Whereas self-produced and other-produced words both resulted in a CSI effect on naming latencies, post-experiment free recall rates were higher for self-produced than other-produced items. Together, these results suggest that both speaking and listening result in implicit learning at the conceptual level of the language system but that these effects are independent of explicit learning as indicated by item recall.

Abstract

Conversational interaction occasionally lapses as topics become exhausted or as participants are left with no obvious thing to talk about next. In this article I look at episodes of ordinary conversation to examine how participants resolve issues of speakership and sequentiality in lapse environments. In particular, I examine one recurrent phenomenon—sequence recompletion—whereby participants bring to completion a sequence of talk that was already treated as complete. Using conversation analysis, I describe four methods for sequence recompletion: turn-exiting, action redoings, delayed replies, and post-sequence transitions. With this practice, participants use verbal and vocal resources to locally manage their participation framework when ending one course of action and potentially starting up a new one

Abstract

Does blinking function as a type of feedback in conversation? To address this question, we built a corpus of Dutch conversations, identified short and long addressee blinks during extended turns, and measured their occurrence relative to the end of turn constructional units (TCUs), the location
where feedback typically occurs. Addressee blinks were indeed timed to the
end of TCUs. Also, long blinks were more likely than short blinks to occur
during mutual gaze, with nods or continuers, and their occurrence was
restricted to sequential contexts in which signaling understanding was
particularly relevant, suggesting a special signaling capacity of long blinks.

Abstract

Bats use a large repertoire of calls for social communication, which are often characterized by temporal amplitude and frequency modulations. As bats are considered to be among the few mammalian species capable of vocal learning, the perception of temporal sound modulations should be crucial for juvenile bats to develop social communication abilities. However, the post-natal development of auditory processing of temporal modulations has not been investigated in bats, so far. Here we use the minimally invasive technique of recording auditory brainstem responses to measure the envelope following response (EFR) to sinusoidally amplitude modulated noise (range of modulation frequencies: 11–130 Hz) in three juveniles (p8-p72) of the bat, Phyllostomus discolor. In two out of three animals, we show that although amplitude modulation processing is basically developed at p8, EFRs maturated further over a period of about two weeks until p33. Maturation of the EFR generally took longer for higher modulation frequencies (87–130 Hz) than for lower modulation frequencies (11–58 Hz).

Abstract

Speakers often use gesture to demonstrate how to perform actions—for example, they might show how to open the top of a jar by making a twisting motion above the jar. Yet it is unclear whether listeners learn as much from seeing such gestures as they learn from seeing actions that physically change the position of objects (i.e., actually opening the jar). Here, we examined participants' implicit and explicit understanding about a series of movements that demonstrated how to move a set of objects. The movements were either shown with actions that physically relocated each object or with gestures that represented the relocation without touching the objects. Further, the end location that was indicated for each object covaried with whether the object was grasped with one or two hands. We found that memory for the end location of each object was better after seeing the physical relocation of the objects, that is, after seeing action, than after seeing gesture, regardless of whether speech was absent (Experiment 1) or present (Experiment 2). However, gesture and action built similar implicit understanding of how a particular handgrasp corresponded with a particular end location. Although gestures miss the benefit of showing the end state of objects that have been acted upon, the data show that gestures are as good as action in building knowledge of how to perform an action.

Abstract

Dutch-learning and English-learning 9-month-olds were tested, using the Headturn Preference Procedure, for their ability to segment Dutch words with strong/weak stress patterns from fluent Dutch speech. This prosodic pattern is highly typical for words of both languages. The infants were familiarized with pairs of words and then tested on four passages, two that included the familiarized words and two that did not. Both the Dutch- and the English-learning infants gave evidence of segmenting the targets from the passages, to an equivalent degree. Thus, English-learning infants are able to extract words from fluent speech in a language that is phonetically different from English. We discuss the possibility that this cross-language segmentation ability is aided by the similarity of the typical rhythmic structure of Dutch and English words.

Abstract

Many women diagnosed with a major depression continue or initiate antidepressant treatment during pregnancy. Both maternal stress and selective serotonin inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant treatment during pregnancy have been associated with changes in offspring behavior, including increased anxiety and depressive-like behavior. Our aim was to investigate the effects of the SSRI fluoxetine (FLX), with and without the presence of a maternal depression, on affective behavior in male and female rat offspring. As reduced serotonin transporter (SERT) availability has been associated with altered behavioral outcome, both offspring with normal (SERT+/+) and reduced (SERT+/−) SERT expression were included. For our animal model of maternal depression, SERT+/− dams exposed to early life stress were used. Perinatal FLX treatment and early life stress in dams (ELSD) had sex- and genotype-specific effects on affective behavior in the offspring. In female offspring, perinatal FLX exposure interacted with SERT genotype to increase anxiety and depressive-like behavior in SERT+/+, but not SERT+/−, females. In male offspring, ELSD reduced anxiety and interacted with SERT genotype to decrease depressive-like behavior in SERT+/−, but not SERT+/+, males. Altogether, SERT+/+ female offspring appear to be more sensitive than SERT+/− females to the effects of perinatal FLX exposure, while SERT+/− male offspring appear more sensitive than SERT+/+ males to the effects of ELSD on affective behavior. Our data suggest a role for offspring SERT genotype and sex in FLX and ELSD-induced effects on affective behavior, thereby contributing to our understanding of the effects of perinatal SSRI treatment on offspring behavior later in life.

Abstract

It has been hypothesised that nonsyndromic cleft lip/palate (nsCL/P) and cancer may share aetiological risk factors. Population studies have found inconsistent evidence for increased incidence of cancer in nsCL/P cases, but several genes (e.g.,CDH1,AXIN2) have been implicated in the aetiologies of both phenotypes. We aimed to evaluate shared genetic aetiology between nsCL/P and oral cavity/oropharyngeal cancers (OC/OPC), which affect similar anatomical regions. Using a primary sample of 5,048 OC/OPC cases and 5,450 controls of European ancestry and a replication sample of 750 cases and 336,319 controls from UK Biobank, we estimate genetic overlap using nsCL/P polygenic risk scores (PRS) with Mendelian randomization analyses performed to evaluate potential causal mechanisms. In the primary sample, we found strong evidence for an association between a nsCL/P PRS and increased odds of OC/OPC (per standard deviation increase in score, odds ratio [OR]: 1.09; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04, 1.13;p = .000053). Although confidence intervals overlapped with the primary estimate, we did not find confirmatory evidence of an association between the PRS and OC/OPC in UK Biobank (OR 1.02; 95% CI: 0.95, 1.10;p = .55). Mendelian randomization analyses provided evidence that major nsCL/P risk variants are unlikely to influence OC/OPC. Our findings suggest possible shared genetic influences on nsCL/P and OC/OPC.

Abstract

Strong right-hand preference on the population level is a uniquely human feature, although its neural basis is still not clearly defined. Recent behavioural and neuroimaging literature suggests that hand preference may be related to the orchestrated function and size of fronto-parietal white matter tracts bilaterally. Lesions to these tracts induced during tumour resection may provide an opportunity to test this hypothesis. In the present study, a cohort of seventeen neurosurgical patients with left hemisphere brain tumours were recruited to investigate whether resection of certain white matter tracts affects the choice of hand selected for the execution of a goal-directed task (assembly of jigsaw puzzles). Patients performed the puzzles, but also tests for basic motor ability, selective attention and visuo-constructional ability, preoperatively and one month after surgery. An atlas-based disconnectome analysis was conducted to evaluate whether resection of tracts was significantly associated with changes in hand selection. Diffusion tractography was also used to dissect fronto-parietal tracts (the superior longitudinal fasciculus) and the corticospinal tract. Results showed a shift in hand selection despite the absence of any motor or cognitive deficits, which was significantly associated with frontal and parietal resections rather than other lobes. In particular, the shift in hand selection was significantly associated with the resection of dorsal rather than ventral fronto-parietal white matter connections. Dorsal white matter pathways contribute bilaterally to control of goal-directed hand movements. We show that unilateral lesions, that may unbalance the cooperation of the two hemispheres, can alter the choice of hand selected to accomplish movements.

Abstract

Speakers of a language sometimes use particular constructions which violate prescriptive grammar rules. Despite their prescriptive ungrammaticality, they can occur rather frequently. One such example is the comparative construction in Dutch and similarly in German, where the equative particle is used in comparative constructions instead of the prescriptively correct comparative particle (Dutch beter als Jan and German besser wie Jan ‘lit. better as John’). From a theoretical linguist’s point of view, these so-called grammatical norm violations are perfectly grammatical, even though they are not part of the language’s prescriptive grammar. In a series of three experiments using sentence-matching and eye-tracking methodology, we investigated whether grammatical norm violations are processed as truly grammatical, as truly ungrammatical, or whether they fall in between these two. We hypothesized that the latter would be the case. We analyzed our data using linear mixed effects models in order to capture possible individual differences. The results of the sentence-matching experiments, which were conducted in both Dutch and German, showed that the grammatical norm violation patterns with ungrammatical sentences in both languages. Our hypothesis was therefore not borne out. However, using the more sensitive eye-tracking method on Dutch speakers only, we found that the ungrammatical alternative leads to higher reading times than the grammatical norm violation. We also found significant individual variation regarding this very effect. We furthermore replicated the processing difference between the grammatical norm violation and the prescriptively correct variant. In summary, we conclude that while the results of the more sensitive eye-tracking experiment suggest that grammatical norm violations are not processed on a par with ungrammatical sentences, the results of all three experiments clearly show that grammatical norm violations cannot be considered grammatical, either.

Abstract

Prescriptive grammar rules are taught in education, generally to ban the use of certain frequently encountered constructions in everyday language. This may lead to hypercorrection, meaning that the prescribed form in one construction is extended to another one in which it is in fact prohibited by prescriptive grammar. We discuss two such cases in Dutch: the hypercorrect use of the comparative particle dan ‘than’ in equative constructions, and the hypercorrect use of the accusative pronoun hen ‘them’ for a dative object. In two experiments, high school students of three educational levels were tested on their use of these hypercorrect forms (nexp1 = 162, nexp2 = 159). Our results indicate an overall large amount of hypercorrection across all levels of education, including pre-university level students who otherwise perform better in constructions targeted by prescriptive grammar rules. We conclude that while teaching prescriptive grammar rules to high school students seems to increase their use of correct forms in certain constructions, this comes at a cost of hypercorrection in others.

Abstract

A main challenge for theories of embodied cognition is to understand the task dependency of embodied language processing. One possibility is that perceptual representations (e.g., typical colour of objects mentioned in spoken sentences) are not activated routinely but the influence of perceptual representation emerges only when context strongly supports their involvement in language. To explore this question, we tested the effects of colour representations during language processing in three visual- world eye-tracking experiments. On critical trials, participants listened to sentence- embedded words associated with a prototypical colour (e.g., ‘...spinach...’) while they inspected a visual display with four printed words (Experiment 1), coloured or greyscale line drawings (Experiment 2) and a ‘blank screen’ after a preview of coloured or greyscale line drawings (Experiment 3). Visual context always presented a word/object (e.g., frog) associated with the same prototypical colour (e.g. green) as the spoken target word and three distractors. When hearing spinach participants did not prefer the written word frog compared to other distractor words (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, colour competitors attracted more overt attention compared to average distractors, but only for the coloured condition and not for greyscale trials. Finally, when the display was removed at the onset of the sentence, and in contrast to the previous blank-screen experiments with semantic competitors, there was no evidence of colour competition in the eye-tracking record (Experiment 3). These results fit best with the notion that the main role of perceptual representations in language processing is to contextualize language in the immediate environment.

Abstract

We recently reported that refocusing attention between temporal and spatial tasks becomes more difficult with increasing age, which could impair daily activities such as driving (Callaghan et al., 2017). Here, we investigated the extent to which difficulties in refocusing attention extend to naturalistic settings such as simulated driving. A total of 118 participants in five age groups (18–30; 40–49; 50–59; 60–69; 70–91 years) were compared during continuous simulated driving, where they repeatedly switched from braking due to traffic ahead (a spatially focal yet temporally complex task) to reading a motorway road sign (a spatially more distributed task). Sequential-Task (switching) performance was compared to Single-Task performance (road sign only) to calculate age-related switch-costs. Electroencephalography was recorded in 34 participants (17 in the 18–30 and 17 in the 60+ years groups) to explore age-related changes in the neural oscillatory signatures of refocusing attention while driving. We indeed observed age-related impairments in attentional refocusing, evidenced by increased switch-costs in response times and by deficient modulation of theta and alpha frequencies. Our findings highlight virtual reality (VR) and Neuro-VR as important methodologies for future psychological and gerontological research.

Abstract

An important issue in theories of word learning is how abstract or context-specific representations of novel words are. One aspect of this broad issue is how well learners maintain information about the source of novel words. We investigated whether listeners’ source memory was better for words learned from members of their in-group (students of their own university) than it is for words learned from members of an out-group (students from another institution). In the first session, participants saw 6 faces and learned which of the depicted students attended either their own or a different university. In the second session, they learned competing labels (e.g., citrus-peller and citrus-schiller; in English, lemon peeler and lemon stripper) for novel gadgets, produced by the in-group and out-group speakers. Participants were then tested for source memory of these labels and for the strength of their in-group bias, that is, for how much they preferentially process in-group over out-group information. Analyses of source memory accuracy demonstrated an interaction between speaker group membership status and participants’ in-group bias: Stronger in-group bias was associated with less accurate source memory for out-group labels than in-group labels. These results add to the growing body of evidence on the importance of social variables for adult word learning.

Abstract

Foreign languages are often learned in emotionally neutral academic environments which differ greatly from the familiar context where native languages are acquired. This difference in learning contexts has been argued to lead to reduced emotional resonance when confronted with a foreign language. In the current study, we investigated whether the reactivity of the sympathetic nervous system in response to emotionally-charged stimuli is reduced in a foreign language. To this end, pupil sizes were recorded while reading aloud emotional sentences in the native or foreign language. Additionally, subjective ratings of emotional impact were provided after reading each sentence, allowing us to further investigate foreign language effects on explicit emotional understanding. Pupillary responses showed a larger effect of emotion in the native than in the foreign language. However, such a difference was not present for explicit ratings of emotionality. These results reveal that the sympathetic nervous system reacts differently depending on the language context, which in turns suggests a deeper emotional processing when reading in a native compared to a foreign language.

Abstract

We investigated how two groups of Turkish-Dutch bilinguals and two groups of monolingual speakers of the two languages described static topological relations. The bilingual groups differed with respect to their first (L1) and second (L2) language proficiencies and a number of sociolinguistic factors. Using an elicitation tool that covers a wide range of topological relations, we first assessed the extensions of different spatial expressions (topological relation markers, TRMs) in the Turkish and Dutch spoken by monolingual speakers. We then assessed differences in the use of TRMs between the two bilingual groups and monolingual speakers. In both bilingual groups, differences compared to monolingual speakers were mainly observed for Turkish. Dutch-dominant bilinguals showed enhanced congruence between translation-equivalent Turkish and Dutch TRMs. Turkish-dominant bilinguals extended the use of a topologically neutral locative marker. Our results can be interpreted as showing different bilingual optimization strategies (Muysken, 2013) in bilingual speakers who live in the same environment but differ with respect to L2 onset, L2 proficiency, and perceived importance of the L1.

Abstract

The computations involved in statistical learning have long been debated. Here, we build on work suggesting that a basic memory process, chunking , may account for the processing of statistical regularities into larger units. Drawing on methods from the memory literature, we developed a novel paradigm to test statistical learning by leveraging a robust phenomenon observed in serial recall tasks: that short‐term memory is fundamentally shaped by long‐term distributional learning. In the statistically induced chunking recall (SICR) task, participants are exposed to an artificial language, using a standard statistical learning exposure phase. Afterward, they recall strings of syllables that either follow the statistics of the artificial language or comprise the same syllables presented in a random order. We hypothesized that if individuals had chunked the artificial language into word‐like units, then the statistically structured items would be more accurately recalled relative to the random controls. Our results demonstrate that SICR effectively captures learning in both the auditory and visual modalities, with participants displaying significantly improved recall of the statistically structured items, and even recall specific trigram chunks from the input. SICR also exhibits greater test–retest reliability in the auditory modality and sensitivity to individual differences in both modalities than the standard two‐alternative forced‐choice task. These results thereby provide key empirical support to the chunking account of statistical learning and contribute a valuable new tool to the literature.

Abstract

Attempts to connect individual differences in statistical learning with broader aspects of cognition have received considerable attention, but have yielded mixed results. A possible explanation is that statistical learning is typically tested using the two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) task. As a meta-cognitive task relying on explicit familiarity judgments, 2AFC may not accurately capture implicitly formed statistical computations. In this paper, we adapt the classic serial-recall memory paradigm to implicitly test statistical learning in a statistically-induced chunking recall (SICR) task. We hypothesized that artificial language exposure would lead subjects to chunk recurring statistical patterns, facilitating recall of words from the input. Experiment 1 demonstrates that SICR offers more fine-grained insights into individual differences in statistical learning than 2AFC. Experiment 2 shows that SICR has higher test-retest reliability than that reported for 2AFC. Thus, SICR offers a more sensitive measure of individual differences, suggesting that basic chunking abilities may explain statistical learning.

Abstract

Current psycholinguistic theory proffers prediction as a central, explanatory mechanism in language
processing. However, widely-replicated prediction effects may not mean that prediction is
necessary in language processing. As a case in point, C. D. Martin et al. [2013. Bilinguals reading
in their second language do not predict upcoming words as native readers do.
Journal of
Memory and Language, 69
(4), 574
–
588. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2013.08.001] reported ERP evidence for
prediction in native- but not in non-native speakers. Articles mismatching an expected noun
elicited larger negativity in the N400 time window compared to articles matching the expected
noun in native speakers only. We attempted to replicate these findings, but found no evidence
for prediction irrespective of language nativeness. We argue that pre-activation of phonological
form of upcoming nouns, as evidenced in article-elicited effects, may not be a robust
phenomenon. A view of prediction as a necessary computation in language comprehension
must be re-evaluated.

Abstract

We used event-related potentials (ERP) to investigate whether Spanish−English bilinguals preactivate form and meaning of predictable words. Participants read high-cloze sentence contexts (e.g., “The student is going to the library to borrow a . . .”), followed by the predictable word (book), a word that was form-related (hook) or semantically related (page) to the predictable word, or an unrelated word (sofa). Word stimulus onset synchrony (SOA) was 500 ms (Experiment 1) or 700 ms (Experiment 2). In both experiments, all nonpredictable words elicited classic N400 effects. Form-related and unrelated words elicited similar N400 effects. Semantically related words elicited smaller N400s than unrelated words, which however, did not depend on cloze value of the predictable word. Thus, we found no N400 evidence for preactivation of form or meaning at either SOA, unlike native-speaker results (Ito, Corley et al., 2016). However, non-native speakers did show the post-N400 posterior positivity (LPC effect) for form-related words like native speakers, but only at the slower SOA. This LPC effect increased gradually with cloze value of the predictable word. We do not interpret this effect as necessarily demonstrating prediction, but rather as evincing combined effects of top-down activation (contextual meaning) and bottom-up activation (form similarity) that result in activation of unseen words that fit the context well, thereby leading to an interpretation conflict reflected in the LPC. Although there was no evidence that non-native speakers preactivate form or meaning, non-native speakers nonetheless appear to use bottom-up and top-down information to constrain incremental interpretation much like native speakers do.

Abstract

Many foundational questions in the psychology of music require cross-cultural approaches, yet the vast majority of work in the field to date has been conducted with Western participants and Western music. For cross-cultural research to thrive, it will require collaboration between people from different disciplinary backgrounds, as well as strategies for overcoming differences in assumptions, methods, and terminology. This position paper surveys the current state of the field and offers a number of concrete recommendations focused on issues involving ethics, empirical methods, and definitions of “music” and “culture.”

Abstract

n this study we investigated the durational correlates of lexical stress and pitch accent at normal and fast speech rate in Dutch. Previous literature on English shows that durations of lexically unstressed vowels are reduced more than stressed vowels when speakers increase their speech rate. We found that the same holds for Dutch, irrespective of whether the unstressed vowel is schwa or a "full" vowel. In the same line, we expected that vowels in words without a pitch accent would be shortened relatively more than vowels in words with a pitch accent. This was not the case: if anything, the accented vowels were shortened relatively more than the unaccented vowels. We conclude that duration is an important cue for lexical stress, but not for pitch accent.

Abstract

Studies on fast speech have shown that word-level timing of fast speech differs from that of normal rate speech in that unstressed syllables are shortened more than stressed syllables as speech rate increases. An earlier experiment showed that the intelligibility of time-compressed speech could not be improved by making its temporal organisation closer to natural fast speech. To test the hypothesis that segmental intelligibility is more important than prosodic timing in listening to timecompressed speech, the intelligibility of bisyllabic words was tested in three time-compression conditions: either stressed and unstressed syllable were compressed to the same degree, or the stressed syllable was compressed more than the unstressed syllable, or the reverse. As was found before, imitating wordlevel timing of fast speech did not improve intelligibility over linear compression. However, the results did not confirm the hypothesis either: there was no difference in intelligibility between the three compression conditions. We conclude that segmental intelligibility plays an important role, but further research is necessary to decide between the contributions of prosody and segmental intelligibility to the word-level intelligibility of time-compressed speech.

Abstract

In this study we investigate whether speakers, in line with the predictions of the Hyper- and Hypospeech theory, speed up most during the least informative parts and less during the more informative parts, when they are asked to speak faster. We expected listeners to benefit from these changes in timing, and our main goal was to find out whether making the temporal organisation of artificially time-compressed speech more like that of natural fast speech would improve intelligibility over linear time compression. Our production study showed that speakers reduce unstressed syllables more than stressed syllables, thereby making the prosodic pattern more pronounced. We extrapolated fast speech timing to even faster rates because we expected that the more salient prosodic pattern could be exploited in difficult listening situations. However, at very fast speech rates, applying fast speech timing worsens intelligibility. We argue that the non-uniform way of speeding up may not be due to an underlying communicative principle, but may result from speakers’ inability to speed up otherwise. As both prosodic and segmental information contribute to word recognition, we conclude that extrapolating fast speech timing to extremely fast rates distorts this balance between prosodic and segmental information.

Abstract

Children's abilities to process the phonological structure of words are important predictors of their literacy development. In the current study, we examined the interrelatedness between implicit (i.e., speech decoding) and explicit (i.e., phonological awareness) phonological abilities, and especially the role therein of lexical specificity (i.e., the ability to learn to recognize spoken words based on only minimal acoustic-phonetic differences). We tested 75 Dutch monolingual and 64 Turkish–Dutch bilingual kindergartners. SEM analyses showed that speech decoding predicted lexical specificity, which in turn predicted rhyme awareness in the first language learners but phoneme awareness in the second language learners. Moreover, in the latter group there was an impact of the second language: Dutch speech decoding and lexical specificity predicted Turkish phonological awareness, which in turn predicted Dutch phonological awareness. We conclude that language-specific phonological characteristics underlie different patterns of transfer from implicit to explicit phonological abilities in first and second language learners.

Abstract

Bats possess extraordinary adaptations, including flight, echolocation, extreme longevity and unique immunity. High-quality genomes are crucial for understanding the molecular basis and evolution of these traits. Here we incorporated long-read sequencing and state-of-the-art scaffolding protocols1 to generate, to our knowledge, the first reference-quality genomes of six bat species (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, Rousettus aegyptiacus, Phyllostomus discolor, Myotis myotis, Pipistrellus kuhlii and Molossus molossus). We integrated gene projections from our ‘Tool to infer Orthologs from Genome Alignments’ (TOGA) software with de novo and homology gene predictions as well as short- and long-read transcriptomics to generate highly complete gene annotations. To resolve the phylogenetic position of bats within Laurasiatheria, we applied several phylogenetic methods to comprehensive sets of orthologous protein-coding and noncoding regions of the genome, and identified a basal origin for bats within Scrotifera. Our genome-wide screens revealed positive selection on hearing-related genes in the ancestral branch of bats, which is indicative of laryngeal echolocation being an ancestral trait in this clade. We found selection and loss of immunity-related genes (including pro-inflammatory NF-κB regulators) and expansions of anti-viral APOBEC3 genes, which highlights molecular mechanisms that may contribute to the exceptional immunity of bats. Genomic integrations of diverse viruses provide a genomic record of historical tolerance to viral infection in bats. Finally, we found and experimentally validated bat-specific variation in microRNAs, which may regulate bat-specific gene-expression programs. Our reference-quality bat genomes provide the resources required to uncover and validate the genomic basis of adaptations of bats, and stimulate new avenues of research that are directly relevant to human health and disease

Abstract

A. Caramazza, A. Costa, M. Miozzo, and Y. Bi(2001) reported a series of experiments demonstrating that the ease of producing a word depends only on the frequency of that specific word but not on the frequency of a homophone twin. A. Caramazza, A. Costa, et al. concluded that homophones have separate word form representations and that the absence of frequency-inheritance effects for homophones undermines an important argument in support of 2-stage models of lexical access, which assume that syntactic (lemma) representations mediate between conceptual and phonological representations. The authors of this article evaluate the empirical basis of this conclusion, report 2 experiments demonstrating a frequency-inheritance effect, and discuss other recent evidence. It is concluded that homophones share a common word form and that the distinction between lemmas and word forms should be upheld.

Abstract

Language processing is influenced by multiple sources of information. We examined whether the performance in simultaneous interpreting would be improved when providing two sources of information, the auditory speech as well as corresponding lip-movements, in comparison to presenting the auditory speech alone. Although there was an improvement in sentence recognition when presented with visible speech, there was no difference in performance between these two presentation conditions when bilinguals simultaneously interpreted from English to German or from English to Spanish. The reason why visual speech did not contribute to performance could be the presentation of the auditory signal without noise (Massaro, 1998). This hypothesis should be tested in the future. Furthermore, it should be investigated if an effect of visible speech can be found for other contexts, when visual information could provide cues for emotions, prosody, or syntax.

Abstract

Thematic roles characterise the functions of participants in events, but there is no agreement on how these roles are identified in the real world. In three experiments, we examined how role identification in push events is supported by the visual object-tracking system. Participants saw one to three push events in visual scenes with nine identical randomly moving circles. After a period of random movement, two circles from one of the push events and a foil object were given different colours and the participants had to identify their roles in the push with an active sentence, such as red pushed blue. It was found that the participants could track the agent and patient targets and generate descriptions that identified their roles at above chance levels, even under difficult conditions, such as when tracking multiple push events (Experiments 1–3), fixating their gaze (Experiment 1), performing a concurrent speeded-response task (Experiment 2), and when tracking objects that were temporarily invisible (Experiment 3). The results were consistent with previous findings of an average tracking capacity limit of four objects, individual differences in this capacity, and the use of attentional strategies. The studies demonstrated that thematic role information can be maintained when tracking the identity of visually identical objects, then used to map role fillers (e.g., the agent of a push event) into their appropriate sentence positions. This suggests that thematic role features are stored temporarily in the visual object-tracking system.

Abstract

The Possible Word Constraint limits the number of lexical candidates considered in speech recognition by stipulating that input should be parsed into a string of lexically viable chunks. For instance, an isolated single consonant is not a feasible word candidate. Any segmentation containing such a chunk is disfavored. Five experiments using the head-turn preference procedure investigated whether, like adults, 12-month-olds observe this constraint in word recognition. In Experiments 1 and 2, infants were familiarized with target words (e.g., rush), then tested on lists of nonsense items containing these words in “possible” (e.g., “niprush” [nip + rush]) or “impossible” positions (e.g., “prush” [p + rush]). The infants listened significantly longer to targets in “possible” versus “impossible” contexts when targets occurred at the end of nonsense items (rush in “prush”), but not when they occurred at the beginning (tan in “tance”). In Experiments 3 and 4, 12-month-olds were similarly familiarized with target words, but test items were real words in sentential contexts (win in “wind” versus “window”). The infants listened significantly longer to words in the “possible” condition regardless of target location. Experiment 5 with targets at the beginning of isolated real words (e.g., win in “wind”) replicated Experiment 2 in showing no evidence of viability effects in beginning position. Taken together, the findings suggest that, in situations in which 12-month-olds are required to rely on their word segmentation abilities, they give evidence of observing lexical viability constraints in the way that they parse fluent speech.

Abstract

Children who hear large amounts of diverse speech learn language more quickly than children who do not. However, high correlations between the amount and the diversity of the input in speech samples makes it difficult to isolate the influence of each. We overcame this problem by controlling the input to a computational model so that amount of exposure to linguistic input (quantity) and the quality of that input (lexical diversity) were independently manipulated. Sublexical, lexical, and multi-word knowledge were charted across development (Study 1), showing that while input quantity may be important early in learning, lexical diversity is ultimately more crucial, a prediction confirmed against children’s data (Study 2). The model trained on a lexically diverse input also performed better on nonword repetition and sentence recall tests (Study 3) and was quicker to learn new words over time (Study 4). A language input that is rich in lexical diversity outperforms equivalent richness in quantity for learned sublexical and lexical knowledge, for well-established language tests, and for acquiring words that have never been encountered before.

Abstract

Sustained attention has previously been shown as a requirement for language production. However, this is mostly evident for difficult conditions, such as a dual-task situation. The current study provides corroborating evidence that this relationship holds even for simple picture naming. Sustained attention ability, indexed both by participants’ reaction times and individuals’ hit rate (the proportion of correctly detected targets) on a digit discrimination task, correlated with picture naming latencies. Individuals with poor sustained attention were consistently slower and their RT distributions were more positively skewed when naming pictures compared to individuals with better sustained attention. Additionally, the need to sustain attention was manipulated by changing the speed of stimulus presentation. Research has suggested that fast event rates tax sustained attention resources to a larger degree than slow event rates. However, in this study the fast event rate did not result in increased difficulty, neither for the picture naming task nor for the sustained attention task. Instead, the results point to a speed-accuracy trade-off in the sustained attention task (lower accuracy but faster responses in the fast than in the slow event rate), and to a benefit for faster rates in the picture naming task (shorter naming latencies with no difference in accuracy). Performance on both tasks was largely comparable, supporting previous findings that sustained attention is called upon during language production

Abstract

There is a range of variability in the speed with which a single speaker will produce the same word from one instance to another. Individual differences studies have shown that the speed of production and the ability to maintain attention are related. This study investigated whether fluctuations in production latencies can be explained by spontaneous fluctuations in speakers' attention just prior to initiating speech planning. A relationship between individuals' incidental attentional state and response performance is well attested in visual perception, with lower prestimulus alpha power associated with faster manual responses. Alpha is thought to have an inhibitory function: Low alpha power suggests less inhibition of a specific brain region, whereas high alpha power suggests more inhibition. Does the same relationship hold for cognitively demanding tasks such as word production? In this study, participants named pictures while EEG was recorded, with alpha power taken to index an individual's momentary attentional state. Participants' level of alpha power just prior to picture presentation and just prior to speech onset predicted subsequent naming latencies. Specifically, higher alpha power in the motor system resulted in faster speech initiation. Our results suggest that one index of a lapse of attention during speaking is reduced inhibition of motor-cortical regions: Decreased motor-cortical alpha power indicates reduced inhibition of this area while early stages of production planning unfold, which leads to increased interference from motor-cortical signals and longer naming latencies. This study shows that the language production system is not impermeable to the influence of attention.

Abstract

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have problems not only with language performance but also with sustained attention, which is the ability to maintain alertness over an extended period of time. Although there is consensus that this ability is impaired with respect to processing stimuli in the auditory perceptual modality, conflicting evidence exists concerning the visual modality.
Aims

To address the outstanding issue whether the impairment in sustained attention is limited to the auditory domain, or if it is domain-general. Furthermore, to test whether children's sustained attention ability relates to their word-production skills.
Methods & Procedures

Groups of 7–9 year olds with SLI (N = 28) and typically developing (TD) children (N = 22) performed a picture-naming task and two sustained attention tasks, namely auditory and visual continuous performance tasks (CPTs).
Outcomes & Results

Children with SLI performed worse than TD children on picture naming and on both the auditory and visual CPTs. Moreover, performance on both the CPTs correlated with picture-naming latencies across developmental groups.
Conclusions & Implications

These results provide evidence for a deficit in both auditory and visual sustained attention in children with SLI. Moreover, the study indicates there is a relationship between domain-general sustained attention and picture-naming performance in both TD and language-impaired children. Future studies should establish whether this relationship is causal. If attention influences language, training of sustained attention may improve language production in children from both developmental groups.

Abstract

In conversation, speech planning can overlap with listening to the interlocutor. It has been
postulated that once there is enough information to formulate a response, planning is initiated
and the response is maintained in working memory. Concurrently, the auditory input is
monitored for the turn end such that responses can be launched promptly. In three EEG
experiments, we aimed to identify the neural signature of phonological planning and monitoring
by comparing delayed responding to not responding (reading aloud, repetition and lexical
decision). These comparisons consistently resulted in a sustained positivity and beta power
reduction over posterior regions. We argue that these effects reflect attention to the sequence
end. Phonological planning and maintenance were not detected in the neural signature even
though it is highly likely these were taking place. This suggests that EEG must be used cautiously
to identify response planning when the neural signal is overridden by attention effects

Abstract

Theories of conversation propose that in order to have smooth transitions from one turn to the next, speakers already plan their response while listening to their interlocutor. Moreover, it has been argued that speakers align their linguistic representations (i.e. prime each other), thereby reducing the processing costs associated with concurrent listening and speaking. In two experiments, we assessed how identity and associative priming from spoken words onto picture naming were affected by a concurrent speech planning task. In a baseline (no name) condition, participants heard prime words that were identical, associatively related, or unrelated to target pictures presented two seconds after prime onset. Each prime was accompanied by a non-target picture and followed by its recorded name. The participant did not name the non-target picture. In the plan condition, the participants first named the non-target picture, instead of listening to the recording, and then the target. In Experiment 1, where the plan- and no-plan conditions were tested between participants, priming effects of equal strength were found in the plan and no-plan condition. In Experiment 2, where the two conditions were tested within participants, the identity priming effect was maintained, but the associative priming effect was only seen in the no-plan but not in the plan condition. In this experiment, participant had to decide at the onset of each trial whether or not to name the non-target picture, rendering the task more complex than in Experiment 1. These decision processes may have interfered with the processing of the primes. Thus, associative priming can take place during speech planning, but only if the cognitive load is not too high.

Abstract

Spontaneous language learning both in children learning their mother tongue and in adults learning a second language shows that language development proceeds in a stage-wise manner. Given that a developmental stage is defined as a coherent linguistic system, utterances of language learners can be accounted for in terms of what (Selinker, Larry. 1972. Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics 10. 209-231) referred to with the term Interlanguage. This paper is a study on the early interlanguage systems of children learning Dutch and German as their mother tongue. The present child learner systems, so it is claimed, are coherent lexical systems based on types of verb-argument structure that are either agentive (as in Dutch: kannie bal pakke 'cannot ball get', or German: mag nich nase putzen 'like not nose clean') or non-agentive (as in Dutch: popje valt bijna 'doll falls nearly', or in German: ente fällt 'duck falls'). At this lexical stage, functional morphology (e. g. morphological finiteness, tense), function words (e. g. auxiliary verbs, determiners) and word order variation are absent. For these typically developing children, both in Dutch and in German, it is claimed that developmental progress is driven by the acquisition of the formal properties of topicalization. It is, furthermore, argued that this feature seems to serve as the driving force in the instantiation of the functional, i. e. informational linguistic properties of the target-language system

Abstract

In production, frequently used words are preferentially extended to new, though related meanings. In comprehension, frequent exposure to a word instead makes the learner confident that all of the word’s legitimate uses have been experienced, resulting in an entrenched form-meaning mapping between the word and its experienced meaning(s). This results in a perception-production dissociation, where the forms speakers are most likely to map onto a novel meaning are precisely the forms that they believe can never be used that way. At first glance, this result challenges the idea of bidirectional form-meaning mappings, assumed by all current approaches to linguistic theory. In this paper, we show that bidirectional form-meaning mappings are not in fact challenged by this production-perception dissociation. We show that the production-perception dissociation is expected even if learners of the lexicon acquire simple symmetrical form-meaning associations through simple Hebbian learning.

Abstract

Deaf children born to hearing parents are exposed to language input quite late, which has long-lasting effects on language production. Previous studies with deaf individuals mostly focused on linguistic expressions of motion events, which have several event components. We do not know if similar effects emerge in simple events such as descriptions of spatial configurations of objects. Moreover, previous data mainly come from late adult signers. There is not much known about language development of late signing children soon after learning sign language. We compared simple event descriptions of late signers of Turkish Sign Language (adults, children) to age-matched native signers. Our results indicate that while late signers in both age groups are native-like in frequency of expressing a relational encoding, they lag behind native signers in using morphologically complex linguistic forms compared to other simple forms. Late signing children perform similar to adults and thus showed no development over time.

Abstract

Understanding spoken language requires the integration and weighting of multiple cues, and may call on cue integration mechanisms that have been studied in other areas of perception. In the current study, we used eye-tracking (visual-world paradigm) to examine how contextual speech rate (a lower-level, perceptual cue) and morphosyntactic knowledge (a higher-level, linguistic cue) are iteratively combined and integrated. Results indicate that participants used contextual rate information immediately, which we interpret as evidence of perceptual inference and the generation of predictions about upcoming morphosyntactic information. Additionally, we observed that early rate effects remained active in the presence of later conflicting lexical information. This result demonstrates that (1) contextual speech rate functions as a cue to morphosyntactic inferences, even in the presence of subsequent disambiguating information; and (2) listeners iteratively use multiple sources of information to draw inferences and generate predictions during speech comprehension. We discuss the implication of these demonstrations for theories of language processing

Abstract

During spoken language comprehension, listeners make use of both knowledge-based and signal-based sources of information, but little is known about how cues from these distinct levels of representational hierarchy are weighted and integrated online. In an eye-tracking experiment using the visual world paradigm, we investigated the flexible weighting and integration of morphosyntactic gender marking (a knowledge-based cue) and contextual speech rate (a signal-based cue). We observed that participants used the morphosyntactic cue immediately to make predictions about upcoming referents, even in the presence of uncertainty about the cue’s reliability. Moreover, we found speech rate normalization effects in participants’ gaze patterns even in the presence of preceding morphosyntactic information. These results demonstrate that cues are weighted and integrated flexibly online, rather than adhering to a strict hierarchy. We further found rate normalization effects in the looking behavior of participants who showed a strong behavioral preference for the morphosyntactic gender cue. This indicates that rate normalization effects are robust and potentially automatic. We discuss these results in light of theories of cue integration and the two-stage model of acoustic context effects

Abstract

Neural oscillations track linguistic information during speech comprehension (e.g., Ding et al., 2016; Keitel et al., 2018), and are known to be modulated by acoustic landmarks and speech intelligibility (e.g., Doelling et al., 2014; Zoefel & VanRullen, 2015). However, studies investigating linguistic tracking have either relied on non-naturalistic isochronous stimuli or failed to fully control for prosody. Therefore, it is still unclear whether low frequency activity tracks linguistic structure during natural speech, where linguistic structure does not follow such a palpable temporal pattern. Here, we measured electroencephalography (EEG) and manipulated the presence of semantic and syntactic information apart from the timescale of their occurrence, while carefully controlling for the acoustic-prosodic and lexical-semantic information in the signal. EEG was recorded while 29 adult native speakers (22 women, 7 men) listened to naturally-spoken Dutch sentences, jabberwocky controls with morphemes and sentential prosody, word lists with lexical content but no phrase structure, and backwards acoustically-matched controls. Mutual information (MI) analysis revealed sensitivity to linguistic content: MI was highest for sentences at the phrasal (0.8-1.1 Hz) and lexical timescale (1.9-2.8 Hz), suggesting that the delta-band is modulated by lexically-driven combinatorial processing beyond prosody, and that linguistic content (i.e., structure and meaning) organizes neural oscillations beyond the timescale and rhythmicity of the stimulus. This pattern is consistent with neurophysiologically inspired models of language comprehension (Martin, 2016, 2020; Martin & Doumas, 2017) where oscillations encode endogenously generated linguistic content over and above exogenous or stimulus-driven timing and rhythm information.

Abstract

There is evidence that the human cerebellum is involved not only in motor control but also in other cognitive functions. Several studies have shown that language-related activation is lateralized toward the right cerebellar hemisphere in most people, in accordance with leftward cerebral cortical lateralization for language and a general contralaterality of cerebral–cerebellar activations. In terms of behavior, hand use elicits asymmetrical activation in the cerebellum, while hand preference is weakly associated with language lateralization. However, it is not known how, or whether, these functional relations are reflected in anatomy. We investigated volumetric gray matter asymmetries of cerebellar lobules in an MRI data set comprising 2226 subjects. We tested these cerebellar asymmetries for associations with handedness, and for correlations with cerebral cortical anatomical asymmetries of regions important for language or hand motor control, as defined by two different automated image analysis methods and brain atlases, and supplemented with extensive visual quality control. No significant associations of cerebellar asymmetries to handedness were found. Some significant associations of cerebellar lobular asymmetries to cerebral cortical asymmetries were found, but none of these correlations were greater than 0.14, and they were mostly method-/atlas-dependent. On the basis of this large and highly powered study, we conclude that there is no overt structural manifestation of cerebellar functional lateralization and connectivity, in respect of hand motor control or language laterality

Abstract

English and German have similar prosody, but their speakers realize some pitch falls (not rises) in subtly different ways. We here test for asymmetry in perception. An ABX discrimination task requiring F0 slope or duration judgements on isolated vowels revealed no cross-language difference in duration or F0 fall discrimination, but discrimination of rises (realized similarly in each language) was less accurate for English than for German listeners. This unexpected finding may reflect greater sensitivity to rising patterns by German listeners, or reduced sensitivity by English listeners as a result of extensive exposure to phrase-final rises (“uptalk”) in their language

Abstract

In a recent Cognition paper (Cognition 85 (2002) B21), Bornkessel, Schlesewsky, and Friederici report ERP data that they claim “show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of grammatical principles during parsing” (p. B21). In this commentary we demonstrate that the posited contrast between grammatical principles and construction (in)frequency as sources of parsing problems is artificial because it is based on factually incorrect assumptions about the grammar of German and on inaccurate corpus frequency data concerning the German constructions involved.

Abstract

A series of experiments is reported in which subjects describe simple visual scenes by means of both sentential and non-sentential responses. The data support the following statements about the lexicalization (word finding) process. (1) Words used by speakers in overt naming or sentence production responses are selected by a sequence of two lexical retrieval processes, the first yielding abstract pre-phonological items (Ll -items), the second one adding their phonological shapes (L2-items). (2) The selection of several Ll-items for a multi-word utterance can take place simultaneously. (3) A monitoring process is watching the output of Ll-lexicalization to check if it is in keeping with prevailing constraints upon utterance format. (4) Retrieval of the L2-item which corresponds with a given LI-item waits until the Ld-item has been checked by the monitor, and all other Ll-items needed for the utterance under construction have become available. A coherent picture of the lexicalization process begins to emerge when these characteristics are brought together with other empirical results in the area of naming and sentence production, e.g., picture naming reaction times (Seymour, 1979), speech errors (Garrett, 1980), and word order preferences (Bock, 1982).

Abstract

This article makes the case for the universality of the sequence organization observable in informal human conversational interaction. Using the descriptive schema developed by Schegloff (2007), we examine the major patterns of action-sequencing in a dozen nearly all unrelated languages. What we find is that these patterns are instantiated in very similar ways for the most part right down to the types of different action sequences. There are also some notably different cultural exploitations of the patterns, but the patterns themselves look strongly universal. Recent work in gestural communication in the great apes suggests that sequence organization may have been a crucial route into the development of language. Taken together with the fundamental role of this organization in language acquisition, sequential behavior of this kind seems to have both phylogenetic and ontogenetic priority, which probably puts substantial functional pressure on language form.

Abstract

In this article, we examine gaze direction in responses to polar questions using both quantitative and conversation analytic (CA) methods. The data come from a novel corpus of conversations in which participants wore eye-tracking glasses to obtain direct measures of their eye movements. The results show that while most preferred responses are produced with gaze toward the questioner, most dispreferred responses are produced with gaze aversion. We further demonstrate that gaze aversion by respondents can occasion self-repair by questioners in the transition space between turns, indicating that the relationship between gaze direction and preference is more than a mere statistical association. We conclude that gaze direction in responses to polar questions functions as a signal of response preference. Data are in American, British, and Canadian English.

Abstract

Autosomal recessive Stargardt disease (STGD1) is associated with variants in the ABCA4 gene. The phenotypes range from early-onset STGD1, that clinically resembles severe cone-rod dystrophy, to intermediate STGD1 and late-onset STGD1. These different phenotypes can be correlated with different combinations of ABCA4 variants which can be classified according to their degree of severity. A significant fraction of STGD1 cases, particularly late-onset STGD1 cases, were shown to carry only a single ABCA4 variant. A frequent coding variant (p.Asn1868Ile) was recently identified which – in combination with a severe ABCA4 variant – is generally associated with late-onset STGD1. In addition, an increasing number of rare deep-intronic variants have been found and some of these are also associated with late-onset STGD1. The effect of these and other variants on ABCA4 RNA was tested using in vitro assays in human kidney cells using specially designed midigenes. With stem cells and photoreceptor progenitor cells derived from patient skin or blood cells, retina-specific splice defects can be assessed. With expert clinical examination to distinguish STGD1 cases from other maculopathies, as well as in-depth genomics and transcriptomics data, it is now possible to identify both mutant ABCA4 alleles in > 95% of cases.

Abstract

Noncanonical splice-site mutations are an important cause of inherited diseases. Based on in vitro and stem-cell-based studies, some splice-site variants show a stronger splice defect than expected based on their predicted effects, suggesting that other sequence motifs influence the outcome. We investigated whether splice defects due to human-inherited-disease-associated variants in noncanonical splice-site sequences in ABCA4, DMD, and TMC1 could be rescued by strengthening the splice site on the other side of the exon. Noncanonical 5′- and 3′-splice-site variants were selected. Rescue variants were introduced based on an increase in predicted splice-site strength, and the effects of these variants were analyzed using in vitro splice assays in HEK293T cells. Exon skipping due to five variants in noncanonical splice sites of exons in ABCA4, DMD, and TMC1 could be partially or completely rescued by increasing the predicted strengths of the other splice site of the same exon. We named this mechanism “splicing interdependency”, and it is likely based on exon recognition by splicing machinery. Awareness of this interdependency is of importance in the classification of noncanonical splice-site variants associated with disease and may open new opportunities for treatments

Abstract

A central question in the psycholinguistic study of multilingualism is how syntax is shared across languages. We implement a model to investigate whether error-based implicit learning can provide an account of cross-language structural priming. The model is based on the Dual-path model of
sentence-production (Chang, 2002). We implement our model using the Bilingual version of Dual-path (Tsoukala, Frank, & Broersma, 2017). We answer two main questions: (1) Can structural priming of active and passive constructions occur between English and Spanish in a bilingual version of the Dual-
path model? (2) Does cross-language priming differ quantitatively from within-language priming in this model? Our results show that cross-language priming does occur in the model. This finding adds to the viability of implicit learning as an account of structural priming in general and cross-language
structural priming specifically. Furthermore, we find that the within-language priming effect is somewhat stronger than the cross-language effect. In the context of mixed results from
behavioral studies, we interpret the latter finding as an indication that the difference between cross-language and within-
language priming is small and difficult to detect statistically.

Abstract

Humans vary in almost every dimension imaginable, and language is no
exception. In this article, we review the past research that has focused on
individual differences (IDs) in first language acquisition. We first consider
how different theoretical traditions in language acquisition treat IDs, and
we argue that a focus on IDs is important given its potential to reveal the
developmental dynamics and architectural constraints of the linguistic system.
We then review IDs research that has examined variation in children’s
linguistic input, early speech perception, and vocabulary and grammatical
development. In each case, we observe systematic and meaningful variation,
such that variation in one domain (e.g., early auditory and speech
processing) has meaningful developmental consequences for development
in higher-order domains (e.g., vocabulary). The research suggests a high
degree of integration across the linguistic system, in which development
across multiple linguistic domains is tightly coupled.

Abstract

Statistical learning (SL) has been a prominent focus of research in developmental and adult populations, guided by the assumption that it is a fundamental component of learning underlying higher-order cognition. In developmental populations, however, there have been recent concerns regarding the degree to which many current tasks reliably measure SL, particularly in younger children. In the current article, we present the results of two studies that measured auditory statistical learning (ASL) of linguistic stimuli in children aged 5–8 years. Children listened to 6 min of continuous syllables comprising four trisyllabic pseudowords. Following the familiarization phase, children completed (a) a two-alternative forced-choice task and (b) a serial recall task in which they repeated either target sequences embedded during familiarization or foils, manipulated for sequence length. Results showed that, although both measures consistently revealed learning at the group level, the recall task better captured learning across the full range of abilities and was more reliable at the individual level. We conclude that, as has also been demonstrated in adults, the method holds promise for future studies of individual differences in ASL of linguistic stimuli.

Abstract

Eisenberg (2002) presents data from an experiment investigating three- and four-year-old children's comprehension of restrictive relative clauses (RC). From the results she argues, contrary to Hamburger & Crain (1982), that children do not have discourse knowledge of the felicity conditions of RCs before acquiring the syntax of relativization. This note evaluates this conclusion on the basis of the methodology used, and proposes that an account of syntactic development needs to be sensitive to the real-time processing requirements acquisition places on the learner.

Abstract

This study attempts to reveal the mechanisms behind the online formation of Wh-Filler-Gap Dependencies (WhFGD). Specifically, we aim to uncover the way in which maintenance and retrieval work in WhFGD processing, by paying special attention to the information that is retrieved when the gap is recognized. We use the agreement attraction phenomenon (Wagers, M. W., Lau, E. F., & Phillips, C. (2009). Agreement attraction in comprehension: Representations and processes. Journal of Memory and Language, 61(2), 206-237) as a probe. The first and second experiments examined the type of information that is maintained and how maintenance is motivated, investigating the retrieved information at the gap for reactivated fillers and definite NPs. The third experiment examined the role of the retrieval, comparing reactivated and active fillers. We contend that the information being accessed reflects the extent to which the filler is maintained, where the reader is able to access fine-grained information including category information as well as a representation of both the head and the modifier at the verb.

Abstract

We report three studies (one corpus, two experimental) that investigated the acquisition of relative clauses (RCs) in Finnish-speaking children. Study 1 found that Finnish children's naturalistic exposure to RCs predominantly consists of non-subject relatives (i.e. oblique, object) which typically have inanimate head nouns. Study 2 tested children's comprehension of subject, object, and two types of oblique relatives. No difference was found in the children's performance on different structures, including a lack of previously widely reported asymmetry between subject and object relatives. However, children's comprehension was modulated by animacy of the head referent. Study 3 tested children's production of the same RC structures using sentence repetition. Again we found no subject–object asymmetry. The pattern of results suggested that distributional frequency patterns and the relative complexity of the relativizer contribute to the difficulty associated with particular RC structures.

Abstract

Pretence and creativity are often regarded as ubiquitous characteristics of childhood, yet not all education systems value or promote these attributes to the same extent. Different pedagogies and practices are evident within the UK National Curriculum, Steiner and Montessori schools. In this study, 20 children participated from each of these school systems (N = 60, aged 6;10–8;11) completing the test of creative thinking—drawing production (TCT-DP; K. K. Urban, & H. G. Jellen, 1996) and a pretend actions task (W. F. Overton & J. P. Jackson, 1973). Overall, Steiner pupils performed significantly higher on the TCT-DP than both the Montessori and National Curriculum pupils who performed similarly. Steiner pupils also performed significantly better on the pretend actions task than the Montessori pupils, but no other significant differences were found. Overall, there was also a significant positive correlation between pretence and creativity in the current sample, supporting previous research suggesting that these skills are related (e.g., A.S. Kaugars & S. W. Russ, 2009; P. Y. Mullineaux & L. F. Dilalla, 2009).

Abstract

Gestures that spontaneously accompany speech convey information coordinated with the concurrent speech. There has been considerable theoretical disagreement about the process by which this informational coordination is achieved. Some theories predict that the information encoded in gesture is not influenced by how information is verbally expressed. However, others predict that gestures encode only what is encoded in speech. This paper investigates this issue by comparing informational coordination between speech and gesture across different languages. Narratives in Turkish, Japanese, and English were elicited using an animated cartoon as the stimulus. It was found that gestures used to express the same motion events were influenced simultaneously by (1) how features of motion events were expressed in each language, and (2) spatial information in the stimulus that was never verbalized. From this, it is concluded that gestures are generated from spatio-motoric processes that interact on-line with the speech production process. Through the interaction, spatio-motoric information to be expressed is packaged into chunks that are verbalizable within a processing unit for speech formulation. In addition, we propose a model of speech and gesture production as one of a class of frameworks that are compatible with the data.

Abstract

People spontaneously produce gestures during speaking and thinking. The authors focus here on gestures that depict or indicate information related to the contents of concurrent speech or thought (i.e., representational gestures). Previous research indicates that such gestures have not only communicative functions, but also self-oriented cognitive functions. In this article, the authors propose a new theoretical framework, the gesture-for-conceptualization hypothesis, which explains the self-oriented functions of representational gestures. According to this framework, representational gestures affect cognitive processes in 4 main ways: gestures activate, manipulate, package, and explore spatio-motoric information for speaking and thinking. These four functions are shaped by gesture's ability to schematize information, that is, to focus on a small subset of available information that is potentially relevant to the task at hand. The framework is based on the assumption that gestures are generated from the same system that generates practical actions, such as object manipulation; however, gestures are distinct from practical actions in that they represent information. The framework provides a novel, parsimonious, and comprehensive account of the self-oriented functions of gestures. The authors discuss how the framework accounts for gestures that depict abstract or metaphoric content, and they consider implications for the relations between self-oriented and communicative functions of gestures